Wednesday, February 28, 2007

HBO retail shop just opened is doors near Bryant Park at 1100 Avenue of the Americas at 42nd street.

The HBO Shop offers unique merchandise based on many of HBO's most popular shows and especially Sex and the City. Some items include: a line of handbags inspired by the women of Sex and the City, Sex and the City Perfume, limited edition SATC pink zip up hoodie sweatshirts, SATC martini glasses, SATC books, complete season DVD’s, the pink stiletto that Carrie wore on her last date with Mr. Big before he left New York for San Francisco, her signature Chanel clutch purse, and anything else a devoted SATC fan could ever DREAM of owning!

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

UK based singer MIKA will be one of the faces of the new Paul Smith campaign for Spring/Summer 2007!

Mika is all the rage in the UK and is slowly creeping up in the US! With 5 weeks at #1 on the UK charts with his single Grace Kelly and 2 weeks at #1 with his album "Life In Cartoon Motion" he's definitely made his mark.

Album artwork for Mika's debut, "Life In Cartoon Motion" coming out March 27th, 2007 on Universal Records. For more information or to check out Mika's music go to his website at MikaSounds.com or visit his MySpace page.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

The Starter Wife 6-hour television event is coming your way this May on the USA Network! Not familiar with the show? I have included the synopsis below:

“After being blacklisted from premieres to pilates, Molly Kagan (Debra Messing) searches to rediscover life after divorce. A brief respite in Malibu and some oh-so-Hollywood friends prove to be the perfect cocktail for her transformation from "Starter Wife" to her new life. Based on Gigi Levangie Grazer's New York Times best seller of the same name, The Starter Wife also stars Judy Davis, Joe Mantegna, Miranda Otto & Anika Noni Rose.”

The “40’s and Fabulous” contest encourages real women to share why they are more beautiful and confident in their 40s than they were in your 30s or 20s. Five winners will be featured in their own USA commercial -- and win an all-expense-paid weekend to live like a celebrity in Hollywood, including a fashion/beauty makeover and tickets to The Starter Wife premiere!

Enter Now!Share your “Real Starter Wife Story.” If you’re one of the first 50 to submit your story, you’ll receive a “Just Because” flower delivery, a Pond’s prize pack and The Starter Wife novel! The next 100 entrants will also get a Pond’s prize pack.

I always feel kind of defeated by how often I wear jeans,” says actress, dancer, and Soho native Claire Danes. “Plus I have a real weakness for animals on clothing, and hearts and stars. My mom had a nursery school in our loft and a pretty healthy appreciation for kitsch, so I think I appropriated that,” she says, adding that a friend has even given her style a name: kindergarten sophisticate. “But that’s starting to change.”

Not that there hasn’t been plenty of change already. The elegant blonde (next up, she plays a torch singer in the adaptation of Susan Minot’s Evening) doesn’t much resemble the Danes we first met as the disaffected teen with the punkish dye job in My So-Called Life. And neither does her wardrobe. At the moment, her closet includes “a disproportionate amount” of Jane Mayle, which she loves for “being feminine without being aggressively fashion-tastic.” The two shows she went to during Fashion Week were Narciso Rodriguez, who designed the outfit she wore to the Oscars at the age of 17, and Zac Posen, a neighborhood friend who sketched pieces for her back when they were in high school. “I do genuinely, objectively, if that’s possible, love their designs. I know how their clothes work on my body,” she says, “and it’s a great excuse to just run over and say hi.”

The actress likes to stay local for pretty much everything, from her fashion to her food. “I’m incredibly provincial,” she says. “Lucky Strike is across the street from where I live, so it’s my cafeteria. Right now, with the weather, I love bistro food, especially coq au vin. But there’s also Omen, and Blue Ribbon Sushi and Bakery. I love Raoul’s and Lupa. They’re all my spots and they all know me. It’s very Cheers-like. Like any New Yorker,” she says, “it takes enormous effort for me to leave my neighborhood.”

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Sebelia takes a break from selling his fall collection in a Manhattan showroom during Fashion Week. (Photo: MarvinLacar)

Nowadays, most reality-show contestants arrive on set with a plan, a story arc, or an identity they’ve cobbled together from watching other reality shows for the fifteen years since that first season of The Real World. A little Puck here, a little Trishelle there. Jeffrey Sebelia, Project Runway’s third and most recent winner, certainly did. “I thought I’d start out really dark and annoying,” he says.

Unabomber would be his look: hooded sweatshirts and sunglasses. His neck tattoo would seem intimidating until later in the season when—plot twist!—he revealed that it spelled out the name of his totally adorable 2-year-old son, Harrison Detroit, around whom he turns to goo. He talked about his difficult past: the abusive dad, the years of drug addiction, the suicide attempt, his redemption. And the clothes would follow a similar trajectory: shredded and aggressive and dark to start with, far lighter and nearly pretty by the end.

True to his script, Sebelia arrived with irritating pranks, like hand buzzers for introductions and foghorns for early mornings. And he was annoyingly cocky. “I’m looking around, and it’s just all remedial, intermediate stuff happening,” he sneered on the first episode. He was an arrogant winner, a sore loser, and he made another contestant’s mother cry. He picked fights with a pregnant redhead named Laura, who played the uptown bitch to his punk-rock kid. In the final round, she accused him of outsourcing some pleats on leather shorts. Milking his possible disqualification for maximum effect, producers aired lingering shots of a depleted, ghost-white Sebelia on a balcony, chain-smoking in the rain, while Laura lurked in the background. When he was exonerated, at last, he crumbled in a sobbing heap on the shoulder of a cute blonde rival named Uli—his transformation to beloved underdog complete.

In the final episode, his red sundress imprinted with little white apples stole the show. For all the entertainment value he’d added, his collection was, simply put, the most accomplished. It was the most varied in range, the most successfully assembled. “He was the most connected to what’s happening right now,” says Elle fashion director and Runway judge Nina Garcia. “He’s more editorial, more edgy, he has good ideas … John Galliano-esque.” (Read Entire Story)